On June 24, 2012, on an especially warm summer day, I turned ten. I acted so excited because it was my birthday. I waited so long for this day because my age was officially double digits. From the time I woke up, I knew that I would have an amazing birthday. My mom had been planning a party for me for weeks. She made it a shark-themed birthday, and I became so excited to see everything that she had planned for me. She invited all of my friends to my house to celebrate my birthday. My house has a huge woods with many acres of land and a big, blue pond that we swim and fish in all summer long. 

Everyone arrived to my house around two o’clock in the afternoon. It was scorching hot, so we were all swimming before everyone had even showed up. Around four o’clock, we all decided to get out of the pond because we wanted to go play capture the flag. Everyone strived to be on my team because we were at my house, and I knew where the best places around my property were to hide a flag. However, not everyone could be on my team, so we split into two teams. I knew from the beginning that I would win. 

As soon as the game began, I started hauling because I knew exactly where I would put the flag so that nobody would be able to find it. I sprinted all the way to the far corner of my property like a deer where there was an enormous prickly evergreen tree. I placed the sky blue flag on the other side of the evergreen tree where nobody would ever spot it.

 ‘They will never find it here,’ I thought. Now it was time to capture the enemy flag. We knew from the beginning that they went to the south side of my property to the large barn. We decided to circle around so that they wouldn't see us coming. It was executed perfectly. We circled around and were hiding in the woods where they couldn't see us. We could see the crimson flag waving in the wind, but they left Evan behind to protect the flag. There was about a thirty-yard opening from the woods to the flag. I sprinted as fast as I could possibly move. It was perfect. Evan didn’t spot me. This was it! I was going to capture the flag and be the hero, but then out of nowhere, KA-POW! I was struck square in the face with something big and hard. I immediately fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. I lay there for a second stunned. I was so confused. All I could think was, ‘What happened? Did I die or something?’ Then all of the sudden, I realized what happened. I instantly realized how embarrassing what had just happened to me was. I somehow managed to ram face first into a tree branch. Fortunately, I was fine, and I only had a small scratch and a little bit of pain to my nose and upper forehead. However, while I was busy lying on the ground worrying about whether or not my face was okay, we had lost the game of capture the flag. I could hear Evan chanting, “We win; we win!” I was devastated. I still think that they cheated. 

However, it was not the end of the world because we were going to do another competition. The next activity we did was a sand castle competition. Both teams had ten minutes to construct the best sand castle possible. We had just purchased the gritty sand that day and put it out to use. Both teams quickly got to work constructing their sand castles. About halfway through, I noticed something towards the top of the sand castle moving. I believed that it must just be a frog or something harmless that unintentionally was shoved into our sand castle without anyone knowing what they did. Carelessly, I reached out and grabbed the object out of sand and  examined the small creature. All of the sudden I realized what I was holding. My jaw dropped what seemed like all the way to the floor. “Scorpions!” I screamed. I drop the scorpion and everyone quickly scampered over to me. Obviously, nobody believed that there was actually a scorpion in the sand. However, after everyone came over and examined the specimen, sure enough, I was right. It was a scorpion. 

There ended up being two more in the sand that we watched slowly crawl out. I remember thinking to myself, ‘I could have died.’ What if one of the scorpions would have decided to sting me or one of my friends? We could have died. I became terrified by the thought that I could have died. I was a deer frozen in headlights. Everyone was calm and collected, but I was panicked by the thought that I could have died. I wanted to try to capture the scorpions in a bottle, so we could see what they do. We captured one, but my friend’s mom grabbed a shovel and started stabbing all of the creatures. Within a few seconds, all the scorpions were killed, and we obtained safety. To this day I will always remember the day when I almost died.